Searching the literature for your research projects
Many research projects, including evidence summaries, require thorough literature searches and good routines for documentation and reporting. The library offers support.
The research question
- We ensure that no commenced or recently performed review articles exist on the same subject.
- We review the research question to make sure that it can be answered with research literature.
Literature search
At this stage, we can help you with:
- Selecting relevant bibliographic databases
- Developing and customizing search strategies
- Documenting the search strategy, both flow chart and search history
- Doing citation search on the basis of selected hits
- Downloading the hits in a preferred format, removing duplicates
- Saving the search also in order to run it later, if needed
- Creating "alerts" for relevant search terms (notifications via email)
Review of hits
- HVL has access to the review tool DistillerSR for screening and data extraction.
- An alterative program is the screening tool Rayyan, which is freely available without subscription in a version that offers the most basic functions.
Reporting and publishing
- We can contribute with descriptions of the search that may be included in the method section of the publication.
- We can help you getting started with the PRISMA diagram, if needed.
Crediting
- A systematic literature search is an essential part of an evidence summary, and as librarians we put a great deal of effort in this work. We appreciate being acknowledged for our contribtion to your work, for instance in the "Acknowledgement" section of your publication.
- Depending on the need and topic of the project, and on the library's capacity, we may contribute at several stages of the project. Co-authorship may apply, if our contribution meets the criteria of the "Vancouver recommentations".
In order for us to help you, you need to:
- Have a project plan with a narrow research question
- Have sufficient knowledge about methods for systematic reviews
- Have at your disposal at least 3 key research articles that meet the inclusion criteria of your study
NB: Due to an increasing demand for systematic reviews, please get in touch with us as early as you can and in good time before you need the results.
Contact us
As a HVL researcher you are welcome to contact Marianne or Gøril when you are about to start writing a knowledge summary or a systematic review article.
